


A Glittering, Rotting Core

by ashitanoyuki



Series: The Tower [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Backstory, Class Differences, D&D Elements, Dehumanization, Dystopia, Implied/Referenced Slavery, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Note: Not a Monsters and Mana AU, Other, Rebellion, References to Medical Horror, References to nonconsensual organ donation, Shiro's backstory is derived from his Monsters and Mana backstory, sentient livestock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 02:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20074813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashitanoyuki/pseuds/ashitanoyuki
Summary: With his village destroyed and his mentor and twin killed at the hands of demons, paladin Takashi Shirogane has nothing left in the world. Despondant, he turns his life over to the tower, an ordedly society in which all are ranked by their ability to contribute to society.It takes Shiro too long to discover the tower's rotten core. Upon descending to Level Four while working, he discovers a world of horrors masked beneath the shiny rhetoric of the tower - and there, he meets a boy named Keith.





	A Glittering, Rotting Core

Life had not been kind to Takashi “Shiro" Shirogane before the tower. Selected from the children of his village at a young age, he and his twin brother Ryou “Jiro" Shirogane (Ryou's sense of humor at play) had been raised to be paladins. To defend all that was good, and to battle the forces of evil.

  
_“You both were chosen for the bright light inside you,”_ their mentor had told them as they neared the end of their training, brimming with pride. _“I know you will both go on to do great things, and to vanquish great evil.”_

  
By the time Shiro arrived at the tower, aged 23, he was sure that bright light must have faded to an inky blackness, replaced with the ghosts of his dead mentor, his dead twin, his murdered village. Spared from carnage with only his missing right arm and the scar across his face to show for it, he'd made his way from his remote village to the nearest bastion of civilization.

  
What was the point of being a paladin if he couldn't save his own village from a horde of rank-and-file demons? What “great evil" could he vanquish, if he couldn't even save his own brother?

  
It had been a relief to surrender himself to the tower. He declared his monetary worth – moderate – and his skills – plentiful – and his social connections – none. The intake assistant seemed surprised to learn that he had no inherent magic – he guessed that was unusual for elves – but had waved him through after he confirmed that no, he was no bard or wizard or sorcerer or warlock. Perhaps he could have learned the arcane arts, had he not become a paladin, but the closest he knew was prayer; now, with his faith shattered, he had no connection to anything magical.

  
Assigned a token to the Fifth Level, he was given housing and told to wait for assignment to a job. Nearly all of his funds were confiscated, with the promise that they would be applied to a state-of-the-art Holt prosthetic, a mechanical limb produced by some of the tower's finest engineers to replace his missing right arm.

  
Shortly after being given his new prosthetic, he was assigned his new profession – a driver of supply carts between levels. Shiro had driven plenty of carts before, and the technology of the tower was breathtaking; the carts were nearly automated, requiring minimal steering. And for the first six months, his route simply took him between the fifth and sixth levels, with the occasional delivery to the seventh floor, where the upper-class dwelled.

  
And then he was assigned a delivery to the fourth level, and the glistening world of the tower unraveled around him.

* * *

  
“I thought,” Shiro managed through numb lips, “that this was the livestock floor.”

  
His co-driver, an attractive young man named Adam, nodded. “You're correct,” he said. “Level four is for the livestock class.”

  
He'd expected cattle, and chickens, and goats – the like. And certainly, there were fields of cattle, fed dried grass on the stone floor; there were coops upon coops of chickens, their enclosures covered by mesh; there were goats, locked in stony enclosures and watching with belligerent eyes.

  
But there were also pens of tieflings with their horns shaved down. Cages of orcs with their teeth pulled. Enclosures of galra with surgical scars peeking out from their threadbare tunics. Bound dwarves held to chairs inside crates, tubes draining blood fixed to their arms. Scattered cells contained other individuals imprisoned – to what end, Shiro couldn't imagine. All seemed drugged to the gills, twitching, moaning, barely moving except to curl away from onlookers.

  
“So many of them are sentient,” he managed, his voice strangled. “How can they be livestock?”

  
Adam chuckled. “Right, you used to be an outsider,” he said. “They contribute best to our society by providing components, either for spells to be performed by the energy-providers on Level Two, or to be mixed as potions by the merchants on Level Six. Or, for the lucky galra livestock given such purpose, to provide organs, skin, and life energy to our Esteemed Emperor, may he live a thousand more years.”

  
Shiro swallowed hard. “They're harvested for parts?” he asked, his voice small.

  
“Of course,” Adam said. He tapped his brakes, and Shiro just barely had the mind to imitate him, stopping the cart entirely. “C'mon, we've got a shipment to unload. If you're that curious, come by on your day off. Livestock doubles as a zoo – you can get your fill of curiosity then.”

  
Numbly, Shiro exited the cart and began unloading bags of feed. The glistening tower suddenly seemed less bright, as he took in the dull eyes of the sentient beings – the people – just outside the storehouse.

  
Suddenly, the glittering tower that had given him new life didn't seem like such a haven, anymore.

* * *

  
True to Adam's recommendation, he found himself drawn to the Fourth Level on his next day off.

  
His body was heavy as he forced himself to walk the path, the blindfold ripped from his eyes as he took in the suffering of so many other sentient beings. Most shielded their gazes from him, and the more he saw, the larger the pit in his stomach grew.

  
He made it all the way to the galra enclosure before he had to stop, shaking, tears welling in his eyes.

  
“Hey.”

  
Shiro jumped, startled. A glance around the path didn't reveal anyone, until he chanced a look at the enclosure. A boy – a child who couldn't have been more than 16 or 17 – stared at him through the bars, his alarmingly-purple eyes narrowed. He must be of mixed blood – clearly half-galra, but with human or elf or even halfling thrown in. He held a clearly-drugged galra in his lap, a hand running through her hair. They looked eerily similar. Related, maybe?

  
“Hey,” the boy repeated. “Do you mind? Either ogle us and move on, or do whatever merchant shit you're here to do, but you're upsetting my mom.”

  
Shiro glanced at the drugged galra in the boy's lap, who shook her head feebly.  
“Keith,” she slurred, “wha’d I say ‘bou talkin' to…”

  
Keith, the oddly not-drugged half-galra, shushed her and kept petting her hair. “Happy?” he snapped, glaring at Shiro. “You get a good look, zoo-goer?”

  
A lump rose in Shiro's throat. “I – is there anything I can do to help?” he found himself asking, tripping over his own words.

  
He was a paladin. It was his purpose, to help the innocent – and these imprisoned victims were almost certainly innocent!

  
(Was he even a paladin anymore, in this tower?)

  
Keith snorted. “Want to help? Get her off the kidney list. If she loses the next one, that's it. She's only got one left.” He closed his eyes, but not before Shiro could see the sheen start to build up behind his eyelids. “And she's only got one heart and half of her replaceable digestive system left. She'll be dead in a year, at this rate.”

  
Fuck.

  
It was at that moment that Shiro was forced to realize that the tower was rotten to the core.

  
“I'll do it,” he promised. "I'll - I'll find a way to get her off this list."

  
Keith raised his eyebrows. “Not that I don't appreciate it,” he drawled, “but you're only condemning someone else to death. But thanks, Level Five. It's cute of you to pretend you care.”

  
Shiro hesitated. “I didn't know,” he said finally. “I was desperate when I came to the tower. I didn't know it was like this.”

  
Keith looked unimpressed. “Well, now you do,” he said. “Gonna do something about it?”

  
“I - "

  
“Save it,” Keith snapped.

* * *

  
By the time Shiro had found and joined a rebel organization, and managed to get back to Level Four, Keith was gone.

  
Joining the organization had been tricky, but he'd coordinated with Hunk, a Level Six chef who'd picked up on Shiro's mood when Shiro delivered ingredients to his family a week after visiting Level Four. A few months of careful questions and blooming friendship had passed, before Hunk deemed him safe to learn of the organization's existence.

  
Somehow, he'd also made friends with the noblewoman Allura who, while not a rebel herself, was sympathetic to their cause. He hoped to recruit Lance, an oddly friendly Level Seven, eventually; he hoped that the Holt siblings – whom had befriended him during numerous meetings over his prosthetic – would come to see the light.

  
Still, he regretted taking so long to save Keith, now that it was too late.

  
And then Allura learned – against the odds, of her own volition – that Keith had been taken by Lotor, a notorious sadist, but one who had, for some reason, kept Keith alive. Allura expressed her determination to save Keith, which Shiro could only support – even if it meant acquiring Keith like property.

  
Keith was alive. Shiro might be a poor excuse for a paladin, but he would help Allura save him. He had to.

  
Maybe he couldn't vanquish evil, but he could save someone.

**Author's Note:**

> Back again with The Voltron Dystopian AU No One Asked For. Blame (credit) my dear friend Wisttic - he's the one who created the concept of the tower.
> 
> Poor Shiro just wants to be a paladin and save people. Yes, I shamelessly drew on his Monsters and Mana backstory for this- except this time Jiro is the twin brother who died, and Shiro is more depressed than vengeful. Whoops.


End file.
